The Shoe Changes, but the Fit Doesn’t. He Can Explain.

THE shoe is about as elemental as it gets. Although the materials, the designs and the manufacturing process have changed tremendously over the last 150 years, a shoe still comes down to a sole connected to an upper part, with inner support for the foot.

That basic concept has existed for a very long time: Ötzi the Iceman, who died 5,300 years ago in the Austrian Alps, was found in shoes that you and I would recognize, says Elizabeth Semmelhack, curator of the Bata Shoe Museum in Toronto.

But if Mark Klein realizes his vision, shoes for both men and women are about to change. In late July, Mr. Klein’s company, Skins Footwear, intends to break the shoe in two, giving it an outer part, including the sole and upper, which he calls a “skin,” and a removable inner part, which he calls the “bone.”

“The bone is the constant fit and feel,” he says. “Then there’s this blank canvas for you to express yourself with the skins.”

The idea is that a shopper will buy a bone, for about $60, and several skins, which will range from $125 to $300. People will shift from one skin to the next, depending on what they’re doing, much the way they can with other kinds of apparel.

Mr. Klein, who is 33, says he thinks that his patented skin-and-bones concept will eliminate the problem people have with shoes that look good but don’t fit correctly, since the bone should guarantee the same fit for any skin in that size. He also says frequent travelers will appreciate the chance to pack only the foldable, lightweight skins, instead of full pairs of shoes.

The idea came to him one September night in 2002, when he invited friends for dinner at his apartment in Tel Aviv. Mr. Klein, who worked in marketing for ICQ, a unit of America Online, realized that one of his friends was wearing almost the same shoe as he had worn three days before — but not quite.

In fact, his friend had something like seven variations on the same shoe, largely in different colors, from different manufacturers. Mr. Klein wondered why shoes weren’t customized in the same way that computer screens are — users can design their own interfaces, or “skins,” on the screen.

His friend, whom Mr. Klein describes as “a bit of a shoe freak,” liked the concept. That pretty much ruined dinner for Mr. Klein, who — though he hadn’t previously thought that much about footwear — spent the rest of the evening contemplating how to make a two-part shoe.

It wasn’t Mr. Klein’s first entrepreneurial idea; he moved to Tel Aviv in 2000 with a plan to create a Web site covering Israel’s high-tech sector. That failed — “a very humbling experience,” he said. So he was nervous about the shoe idea, not least because he knew nothing about the market. At a gathering the next day with a group of friends, he cautiously spelled out the idea. To his relief, they liked it.

A week later, Mr. Klein quit his job and started working on his company. “If I’d had more people tell me it was a bad idea,” he says, “I probably wouldn’t have persevered.”

It helped that the concept was easy to understand. “The minute I heard about it, I thought it was a great idea. It depended on the execution,” said Dennis Walker, who now runs sales for Skins Footwear.

Photo

Mark Klein has designed a shoe with an inner shell or bone, at rear, that can be fitted with various outer parts, or skins. Retailers have shown interest.Credit
Kitra Cahana/The New York Times

Mr. Walker has seen plenty of innovations in the shoe market — he mentions Reebok’s aerobic shoe for women, or the more recent Crocs phenomenon. He was also president of Rockport Shoes when the company’s concept of comfortable dress shoes was gaining popularity.

But breaking the shoe into pieces, Mr. Walker says, was a brand-new move. He says that “only a nonshoe guy” like Mr. Klein, who was watching the customization trend not just in computers but also across things like cars (Toyota’s Scion) and television (via TiVo), would have thought to do it.

The idea has kept Mr. Klein and his management team going through almost five years of design, development and fund-raising. The original lineup will feature 19 patterns, 10 for men and 9 for women. Each pattern will have three to six choices of colors or materials. They are meant for business casual and more general wear.

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At the heart of the concept is the bone, which needs to be comfortable but firm. The initial bones are made from thermal polyurethane, which can be firm or flexible and can last years. Over time, the company expects to make bones out of other substances, including natural and recycled materials.

Mr. Klein bankrolled the first year of design and development himself — hiring someone to develop a prototype, then going out to raise capital. Eventually, Skins raised money by going public on the over-the-counter bulletin board.

There have been setbacks — in particular, a spring introduction this year was delayed to refine the bone and to make it more comfortable. But now that the product is almost on the market, Skins is meeting with some excitement from shoe retailers.

Mr. Fadlon was skeptical when Mr. Walker called him to say he had something that would turn the industry upside down. But when he saw it, Mr. Fadlon says, “I was blown away” by the shoe and its interchangeable parts “Wow! You hit your head and say, ‘Why didn’t I think of that?’ ”

Mr. Fadlon says he thinks that the shoe has the potential to revolutionize the market. He notes that it is even a “green” product, because the bone is reusable and long-lasting.

BUT Ms. Semmelhack, the museum curator, wrinkles her nose at the idea of having to pull a bone out of a shoe. In 1951, she says, Salvatore Ferragamo introduced a patented product called the Kimo, which combined a sandal bottom that meshed with a variety of uppers that were effectively socks. That product, she notes, “didn’t become a Ferragamo classic”

Ms. Semmelhack also thinks the bone smacks of being an orthotic, which she calls “the Depends of the shoe world.”

But Joel Sigal, president of Littles Shoes in Pittsburgh, which at 20,000 square feet is one of the biggest shoe stores in the country, says he thinks that if the bone is comfortable, the shoes will sell. He says that the styling is innovative and the idea of appealing to more affluent consumers is the right place to start.

Mr. Klein, who is racing back and forth from Skins headquarters in New York to shoe stores in a dozen states and factories in China and Italy, has big plans for his little company. Skins is gearing up to introduce a high-heel bone and a winter line-up of new skins. He eventually hopes to sign licensing deals with large shoe and apparel companies for more skins and for other market segments (Skins currently isn’t making athletic shoes, for instance, or children’s shoes.) It also intends to expand into Europe.

Another shoe is about to drop, and the size of its footprint remains to be seen. But the idea is big.

Michael Fitzgerald is a Boston-area writer on business, technology and culture. E-mail: mfitz@nytimes.com.

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page BU3 of the New York edition with the headline: The Shoe Changes, but the Fit Doesn’t. He Can Explain. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe